


darling i'm a nightmare

by susiecarter



Category: DC Extended Universe, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: 5 Times, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Body Horror, Consent Issues, Extra Treat, F/F, Forced Relationship, Mind Manipulation, Nightmares, Not A Fix-It, Possession, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 17:49:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15712071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/susiecarter/pseuds/susiecarter
Summary: Four dreams the Enchantress made June dream, and one time the dream was the Enchantress's.





	darling i'm a nightmare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [liodain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/liodain/gifts).



> Your prompts for this pairing were all so good I couldn't pick just one ... so I stuffed as many in here as I could get, instead of making myself choose. :D I hope this is something at least approaching what you were hoping for, Liodain, and also that there is sufficient squelch! ♥ And, uh, I ran a bit short on time for canon review, so if I've contradicted anything really blatantly, sorry in advance.
> 
> For anybody else who clicks on this: please **heed the Archive Warning and tags**. This leans aggressively into the consent issues inherent in this pairing, and depictions of non-consensual sexual activity are included.

 

 

**one.**

The first time, June doesn't even know what's happening.

She doesn't know anything. The day is a blur, smeared and strange in her half-formed memory. She—she went into the temple, she'd intended to survey the western complex, and she had. Or she'd started to, and then—

She doesn't know. She'd stumbled back to her camp in the dark, thinking vague thoughts about how wrong that had been; it should only have been dusk at the latest. She'd sunk down into her bedroll, relieved, head spinning, queasy with heat and damp, and she'd let her eyes fall shut.

And then she—she dreams.

 

 

The darkness behind her eyes is different somehow. Weird and sticky, clinging. She's somewhere dim and shadowy, and she's moving. Walking, slow and wary, through a silent place. She can't hear her own footsteps; her feet are bare, and the stone beneath them is wet, slick, against the soles of them.

Stone. She's somewhere made of stone. That wasn't true a moment ago. She looks and this time she knows where she is: this is the main corridor in the temple complex. She's going west.

She's not sure what's the dream and what isn't. She doesn't remember what it looked like, how far she went inside it today. She can't tell. She _can't_ , except—except she climbs a set of crumbling steps and knows them, and her heart pounds. She's getting closer. She's almost there.

The room she enters isn't one she's seen before, except it is, except it isn't. And on the ancient cracking altar, there's—

There should be an object, curved stone, like the last glimmer of a waning moon. June almost remembers what it looked like, can almost feel the weight of it in her hand, except she's never found anything like that at this site.

And in the dream, it's not there anyway. There's nothing lying on the altar but a mirror.

Round, which is typical for the region and period. Polished stone, and it should be worn, marred, but it isn't. And June walks toward the altar and looks into it, and sees herself.

Herself, but not herself at all. At first she can't decide what's wrong with the reflection. Something about—her hair, the way it falls. The shape of her face; the angle of her mouth. June isn't smiling, but the face in the mirror looks like it's about to. And—and her eyes, the look in them; how they've gone dark and heavy-lidded—

 _mmm_ , says the thing in the mirror, and June wants to run screaming but can't move, sick and terrified and utterly still. Wake up, she tells herself, wake _up_ , and the thing in the mirror tips back its head and laughs silently. It moves, then, and—and the mirror's larger now, as tall as June, which is why she can see the way the thing is tilting its hips, moving its hands, running them along its body— _June's_ body—with slow, luxurious lasciviousness.

Even though June's own hands are tucked tight against her elbows, arms wrapped around herself, and she still can't move.

_oh, yes. yes, this will serve. it has been so long, you know. so very, very long._

"Leave me alone," June hears herself say, and the thing smiles at her with her own mouth and reaches out, presses its hand to the inside of the mirror.

_let me out._

"No."

It hisses, displeased, and rolls its neck, its shoulders, to make itself calm again.

_you will let me out._

"No," June says, and in the sudden illogical way of dreams, she's abruptly free to move again. She turns away from the mirror—

—except she doesn't: except there are a dozen of them, a hundred, a vast faceted prison of them, and everywhere she looks she sees her own face.

Her face, and not her face; dark-eyed and smiling, slow and horrible. And it's all so slick, damp and creeping, a smell of dust and smoke and _rot_ —

 

 

That's the thing that frightens her, in the end, when she wakes up. She's had plenty of nightmares. But she can't remember ever having _smelled_ anything in her dreams before, and it's like it's still clinging in her nose, her mouth.

She struggles up off her bedroll and rubs at her face. It's just this place, the heat, this long sweltering night. She needs to drink some water, lie down again, rest properly. That's all.

She gropes through the dark for her water bottle, hands passing over her hairbrush, her flashlight, the little Altoid tin of ibuprofen she takes everywhere when she travels—

Her hand mirror. She stops with her fingertips just brushing the glass, feeling the sick unsteady clench of her gut. She doesn't look down at it, wouldn't be able to see shit in it even if she did; but she can't convince herself to let go of it without turning it over first, so the matte opaque back of it is facing up instead of the mirrored side.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**two.**

Over time, June learns a lot of things about being possessed by the Enchantress. And one of them is this: the worst dreams aren't the frightening ones. The worst dreams aren't the ones about jungles and temples, sacrifices, blood on her hands and her tongue and the taste of raw meat in her mouth; the worst dreams aren't the ones where her reflection's not her own.

The worst dreams are the ones where she doesn't know she's dreaming—where she almost can't tell until it's too late.

 

 

She's in her office at the university. It's Wednesday. Her least favorite day, inevitably; she wants to keep her funding, she does, but not so badly that she can convince herself that she _enjoys_ holding office hours for the hordes of clueless first-year students in her largest lecture class.

Plus, she's had the shadow of a headache trailing her all day. She closes her eyes, rolls her neck, her shoulders. Mmm.

"So, can I?"

She sighs, and makes herself look up into Peter Earnhardt's earnest idiot face. "No," she says, flat. "No, Mr. Earnhardt, you can't make up for having failed to turn in three out of four of the required papers that constitute half of your grade in this course."

"But, Mrs. Moone—"

"Dr. Moone," June says.

"Dr. Moone, sure, sorry," Earnhardt manages. "But, come on, I can't fail this class. What am I supposed to do, retake it?"

"At this point, yes," June says, keeping her tone as calm and level as she can make it. And she supposes the failing grade is meant to be punishment enough. She might as well be merciful. "I can get in touch with your advisor, if you'll tell me their name, and we can discuss your options—"

"But, Mrs. Moone—"

"Doctor," June says, very softly, and

_it's only as much as he deserves_

looks at him across the desk, and tilts her head.

He's still looking at her with baffled dismay, mouth open, halfway through trying to correct himself, when his head jerks back, his neck breaking, untouched, with a clean quiet snap. For a moment his body remains standing, the shell left empty; and then, as he starts to crumple to the floor, the first squirming centipede begins to crawl from his slack mouth.

June sits there and looks at the corpse, the growing swarm of insects spilling from it, and fuck. Fuck, she should have known—

She clenches her fists against the surface of the desk and shakes her head. "No," she says. "No," and she stands and lets the chair topple, doesn't bother to pick it up the way she would have if this were real, because it's not. It's not. "No, _no_ —"

And in the space between one breath and the next, she's no longer alone. There's someone else in the office—behind her, pressed close; chest to her back, unmistakably bare breasts hot and a little damp against June's shoulder blades through her suddenly too-thin shirt. And hands, hands at her shoulders, smoothing down her arms, leaving prickling skin and long black smears behind them.

_but it would be so much easier. it would all be so much easier. let go, that's all._

"No!"

_just a little more often. what harm would it do? let me do these things for you, june, june moone, these small simple things. let me, now and then._

"No," June says again, as sharply as she can manage, squeezing her eyes shut. "A small simple thing, god, you _killed_ him—"

_the smallest simplest thing of all. you know that. death is easy. only ever a breath away, and you, you are all so fragile, aren't you?_

June laughs, and it comes out ragged but she's jammed every ounce of disdain into it that will fit, and the Enchantress's hands settle to stillness against the backs of June's wrists. "Fragile," June says. "You tell me—you're the one who's stuck inside one of us. You're the one who can't get out. You're trapped in me, unless I—unless I _let_ you."

And for an instant, the Enchantress tenses. For an instant, June can hear that pissed-off hiss in her ear, feel those short cracking fingernails dig with sudden viciousness into her wrists.

But all the Enchantress does is ease around to face her, staring at her in that fixed heavy way, still far, far too close.

 _you will give in_ , she murmurs, low and almost sweet, against June's cheek. _you will give me everything_ , and June can't move, can't twist away—has to stay where she is and let the Enchantress slant their mouths together.

 

 

She makes herself forget, later, how it happened. How it felt. The unsettling softness of the Enchantress's mouth, the way it— _gave_ , wet and too-slack; the sound of it.

But even after she wakes, she can't quite get the taste off of her tongue, lingering: rich and rotten, corrupted.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**three.**

It takes June some time to really understand exactly how pleased the Enchantress is to have a body again. Even only some of the time—even when it isn't hers.

Inside the totem, June learns, it had been void. Silence, stillness. Utter nothingness. Half the disorientation she'd felt that first day, she's begun to think, had been the Enchantress's, confronted with sound, sight, _touch_ , after all those terrible empty millennia without.

But now she has a body. June's body.

June can't know for certain what she does with it, when she has it. The Enchantress's actions leave—traces, sometimes; June gets the occasional torn scrap of memory, intense and unsettling déjà vu.

But she can't know for certain, and almost doesn't want to. She _can_ be sure no one else is touching it, at least. That's operating procedure, one of the conditions Waller agreed to abide by when June was first brought in: interactions with the Enchantress, when June has brought her forward, are limited to those required to accomplish the mission objective. And if—

If she comes back to herself, sometimes, with her hand between her legs, or shoved up her own shirt, gripping her own breast—it's her hand. It's her body.

What can she report? Who could she report it to? There's nothing she can do, no way to make it stop. There's no way to keep the Enchantress from—from playing with her, one way or another, even if it's only inside her own head.

 

 

She's pinned down. Naked, squirming, in—in black stinking mud, her wrists both caught together in one of the Enchantress's hands. She tried to run—didn't she, a minute ago? Isn't that what happened? And the Enchantress was faster, grabbed her and pushed her down, shoved her face into the mud and smeared it lovingly across her cheeks, and now—

The Enchantress laughs over her, low and pleased, tightening that hand around June's wrists until tears are squeezing from the corners of June's eyes. And her other hand is—is sliding, slick and muddy, up June's belly, her heaving chest, skimming and squeezing one breast and then the other and then suddenly higher, to June's throat, thumb tripping up the line of it all the way to June's chin and abruptly there are fingers, grasping, so tight it'll bruise.

Would bruise, if this were real.

June jerks and tries to twist away, but the Enchantress has already parted her legs around one of June's, is gleefully riding her thigh, and she follows June's motion easily, head falling back.

_yes, yes, wonderful. fight harder. fight harder, and tire, and then you will give in. you will give in, and give me everything._

She pins one of June's hands to June's chest, and drags the other one down, leaning in, eyes gleaming, and her hair trailing across June's skin feels like crawling insects—

"No," June says, "no, no," but it's—it's only to remind herself how it sounds, that she has to keep saying it. She can't stop this, and she knows that.

The Enchantress rises up onto her knees, forces June's hand between her legs where June's thigh had been, and makes a quiet sighing sound that reeks of pleasure. And god, god, it's horrible, it's—her flesh is so _strange_ , too-soft, almost—almost waterlogged, slick and loose and far too malleable, like badly-bruised fruit.

It's so much worse now, June thinks distantly. Before—she hadn't understood how lucky she was. Those first dreams the Enchantress had put in her head had been so vague, in every respect except that awful vile smell.

But the more time the Enchantress spends in June's body, _feeling_ things, the more it shows. The greater the detail, in here; the more refined the experience. The more _real_ it all is.

 

 

June wakes slowly, gradually, as if she has to fight her way clear of that sticky black mud to do it. And by the time she realizes what she's doing, it's—her thighs are clenching, rhythmic, her hand shoved between them, the tips of two fingers just barely inside herself and everything hot and shivering.

She's herself in the dreams. But she only has one body, and they're both in it. When she wakes up, she's—she was both of them, and fuck, fuck, she's so _close_.

She bites her lip and pushes those fingers deeper, lets that shuddering feeling overtake her, and squeezes her eyes shut, and hates herself for all of it.

_fight harder, and tire, and give in._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**four.**

It's never been very difficult to guess what the Enchantress wants. _Really_ wants, no matter how she likes to toy with June while she waits for her moment. She was a goddess; she still is, except these days no one is forcing ten thousand slaves to work themselves to death building temples in her honor, with their own blood for mortar.

June knows this. But the first time she _understands_ exactly what that means to the Enchantress is when she sees it for herself.

 

 

_but why? why? why deny me what is mine?_

"Because it's wrong," June says, to herself as much as in reply. "Because you're _evil_ , you ancient stinking swamp-bitch."

The Enchantress doesn't seem angered by the insults. She's more often amused by them, in fact—but this time, that isn't quite the word. Intrigued, maybe.

_evil._

"Yes, evil," June snaps. "After everything you've done to me, you really expect me to tell you you aren't—"

 _the world is not as it should be. you could let me make it so. you could let me make it back into itself._ The Enchantress tilts her head, staring—she's always fucking staring, with those dark gleaming eyes, the light almost out in them, like the last glimmer of a waning moon. _let me show you_ , and suddenly they aren't in the ruins of the ARGUS office where this dream started. They're—they're somewhere else.

They're somewhere else, and June has stepped for a moment outside of herself, so she can see it all at once. The throne, yes, and the temple, but also the vast endless darkness outside, the murk of it cracked apart here and there by dim yellow lightning that brings with it a faint sharp stink of ozone. The matching temple, precisely equal in size, a perfect mirror image in the distance, for—for him, June thinks, though she doesn't know why or who it is she means by it.

And the bodies, rotting on the steps and in the dank corners of the rooms. The relentless chittering murmur of insects, insects, and the muted hum of their wings. And the rain, always rain; nowhere to escape it, nowhere dry or clean or bright, because all of it is equally damp and bloated, crumbling.

A breath of this, of being displaced into the great expanse of sky and perceiving it all simultaneously. And then June is herself again: chained beside the huge dark throne, she discovers, with her head tipped sideways against the Enchantress's thigh, as the Enchantress idly strokes thick smudging black lines along her cheek, her throat, her trembling mouth.

 _yes. you see? you see? it is all over_ , she's murmuring, stretching in a lazy leisurely way, fingers tangling in June's hair. _you lost. you tried but you lost. it was inevitable. this is what was, and what will be again, and all that lies between was only a dream._

 

 

When she wakes from that one—

She hates, for a minute, that she's surprised. She hates how true it felt, how clear a vision it was.

And she hates her own fucking selfishness. Because the Enchantress is right. She _is_ tired of this, this endless goddamn battle for herself; and in there, it had been over at last, and the June in the dream had been relieved.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

**and one.**

The thing is, it doesn't go only one way. It can't. As the Enchantress pokes and pries and peels June apart, cracks all her parts and pieces open and learns her from the inside out—it's June's mind, too. It's June's mind, and everything the Enchantress is and was and might become is contained within it. Contained, and enclosed; and, perhaps inevitably, known.

 

 

Sometimes the Enchantress goes quiet, in there. Sometimes it's almost like June is alone in her head again, for a little while. At first she's grateful for it. At first she's glad, relieved. But—

She's curious. She's an archaeologist, her whole life is about being curious, about looking for hidden things; and this curiosity has a sick compelling car-crash edge to it. She doesn't want to know what the Enchantress is doing, she tells herself. Where she's gone, how she's occupying herself. It doesn't matter, as long as it means she's leaving June be for a little while.

Except it does. It does matter. And there's another part of her, deeper down, tucked away, that simmers with irritation, something bubbling perilously close to rage. She _does_ want to know, and why shouldn't she? She deserves to. After everything the Enchantress has done to her, no part of June left that those slim blackened fingers haven't stained— _she's_ keeping whatever this is from June?

After all the time June's spent shying away, trying to struggle free, it feels strange to—to deliberately reach. But it isn't as though she can't. She's always been able to. She just hasn't done it before.

And at first she isn't even sure what she's found. The Enchantress doesn't sleep; but that doesn't mean she isn't dreaming, down there, except when June peers in, it's—it's nothing.

Nothing. A particularly empty nothing, June thinks, and then, slowly, it comes to her: the totem. The vast soundless void that the Enchantress had been trapped in for so long. The Enchantress is dreaming of it, remembering; and June had thought she'd hated it, but right now she's relaxing into that memory with satisfaction.

June leans a little closer, straining, pressing her hand against a dark mirror. And her mind is the Enchantress's mind. All at once, she understands after all.

Because the world is not as it should be. The world is not itself. It's strange, unwelcoming; so much more _crowded_ now

_humans everywhere, seething endless masses, creeping and crawling and squirming like maggots over the putrefying face of a corpse—teeming, teeming. why are there so many? so many, and none of them know my name_

and yet at the same time so much emptier

_where are you, brother? where are they? where are the old gods who were? together we would have defeated them all, spilled their guts into the rivers, made mountains from their corpses and set our temples atop them—but they are gone. they are all gone_

and oh, she _despises_ it sometimes. All that has been lost, all that has been swept away, the great fallen and forgotten empires of her memory. And all her wordless hungry longing, her confusion and distaste, her yearning—

All her yearning, for a moment, is June's.

 

 

June never fit in. She was—she always loved the past so much better. Traced her fingers over pictures in books, reconstructions side-by-side with photographs, millennia laid out like a map of a vast ancient country everyone knew about but no one could reach. And she loved to imagine it, kings and goddesses and empires, temples, battles—the things they had left behind, buried, lost.

She's chosen to spend her life surrounded by dead things. She's chosen to make a career out of picking through the bones left where something that was once great has rotted away and fallen into shadow, and—

And maybe, June has started to think, there's a part of her that wanted this to happen. That looked at that crumbling altar, that totem, and recognized it—that knew the Enchantress for exactly what she was.

That liked it, and let her in.

 

 


End file.
